The “Resident Hippie”. That’s what Mike Kaluta’s pals call him. He’s supposed to be an objectof ridicule... someone to whom they can feel superior. They...Berni Wrightson and Howie Chaykin,in this instance...said it while I was doing the interview session. They said it and Mike seemed toconcur. Personally, I don’t believe it. (And I think the group was busily pulling the leg of an outsider...namely me.)Mike had given me a metaphor in an earlier conversation to describe his relationship to his fellowartists. If they were to be the “Kings of Comics”, he saw himself as the “Court Jester”. That roleseems ingrained in Mike Kaluta. An ironic sense of humor pervades his conversation and his work.Sometimes, he's a bit hard to understand because he speaks with his tongue thrust far into his cheek.I watched Mike criticizing the work of a young fan-artist at the July Con. The teenager asked for aconstructive comment and got it. I was struck with the thought that Mike could well serve as a teacher.When I mentioned the idea to him, he put it down quickly. “No, I can’t enjoy teaching. And I won’tteach because I won’t say that I’m right and someone else is wrong...” And, of course, a teachershould be able to do so when it’s necessary in the teaching process.When we talked of technique, Mike Kaluta told me that he works somewhat differently in differentsubject areas. He compared some science fiction comic pages he had done with his Shadow work.The desire to portray greater detail is the real divider. In his sci-fi work, he works on 3-ply plate finishStrathmore board with 75% of the finished art comprised of pen lines. His Shadow work is 75% brushstrokes on 3-ply Kidde finish board. Mike’s brushes are Windsor-Newton series 7 #00 through #4like most everyone else’s. His pens are ordinary crow quills and hawk quills; again a typical choice.Mike uses a mixed ink for his work; Pelikan with some Higgins mixed into it. He works intuitivelyon the final board. No special composition systems. No layouts on separate paper.He can pencil one page a day and can ink 2 a day although at times he says that he becomes tooself-indulgent and ends up taking a week to ink one page. His favorite series to date was Carson ofVenus. Since Carson is apparently now a dead number, I hope we see lots of Mike Kaluta’s work inthe “Black Pearl” series that he’s supposed to write as well as draw for Seaboard.

Editor’s Note As this article was written some time ago, the information about his forthcoming workmay be outdated. We are unaware of any plans for a Black Pearl character appearance at AtlasComics. MT